Amazon bypasses library, lends Kindle books directly to Prime users

Kindle owners who subscribe to Amazon Prime will now be able to borrow e-books …

Kindle owners now have another reason to shell out $79 per year for an Amazon Prime subscription: Amazon's new Kindle Owner's Lending Library. Those who own any of Amazon's eInk Kindles or the Kindle Fire are now able to borrow books directly from Amazon as long as they're Amazon Prime members, giving them access to some 5,000 e-books at launch, including more than a hundred current and former New York Times bestsellers. The best part: there's no due date.

According to Amazon, users will be able to electronically "borrow" up to one book per month and "return" it whenever they please—there are no "rush through your book in 10 days!" restrictions here. The main caveat is that users can only take out one book at a time, but with the unlimited borrowing window, that's a fair concession to make. The other caveat is that the Lending Library won't be accessible from Amazon's plethora of Kindle apps for other platforms such as iOS, Android, and BlackBerry—it's restricted to hardware Kindles only.

The idea is a bold one, and Amazon makes sure to emphasize that "no other e-reader or e-bookstore offers such a service." Indeed that is true for the time being, though truthfully, Amazon's selection of books that the masses will actually want to read is still relatively small. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, none of the six largest US publishers are participating in the program yet, and several executives reportedly said they believed such a service might harm future sales of older titles.

Amazon is still trying to woo them, though, and has made the uncharacteristic move of publishing its terms up front for the world to see. According to the company, Amazon has reached an agreement with many publishers to include their books in the Lending Library for a fixed fee, but in some cases, Amazon is actually purchasing each title from the publisher every single time it is borrowed. This is in order to "demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue opportunity that this new service presents."

From the consumer side, the Lending Library adds some attractive value to Amazon Prime. Originally introduced as a service to offer free or reduced two-day shipping on items ordered from Amazon, Prime recently gained Netflix-like video streaming abilities. Now, with the addition of what essentially amounts to "free books" for no additional price increase, that $79 per year is becoming an even better deal.

For the time being, though, it seems likely that readers who want to borrow an even wider variety of Kindle books may find a better selection via their own local libraries. In September of this year, Amazon began a partnership with thousands of US libraries to begin lending e-books—most of those are due back within 7-14 days, but obviously don't require you to pay a yearly membership to Amazon. (In a recent hands-on with the service, we found the library lending system to be "clunky, but awesome.")

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

48 Reader Comments

It's definitely a nice feature but it seems you can only initiate the borrowing from the device itself rather than Amazon's site which is a bit inconvenient. Still, I'm sure I'll take advantage of this.

The other caveat is that the Lending Library won't be accessible from Amazon's plethora of Kindle apps for other platforms such as iOS, Android, and BlackBerry—it's restricted to hardware Kindles only.

Boo. I like the Kindle iPad app. But I guess there's no downside (for Amazon) to imposing this restriction. I wonder if many prime members will purchase a device in order to take advantage of this.

I really like the sync features of the Kindle and its sister apps. Pretty great to read on my phone while sitting in a waiting room or line and then get to go home and pick up on the Kindle right where I left off.

Still hard to argue that this is a great thing if you're already a Prime member (I am, the shipping paid for itself last Christmas).

Digital lending still has a way to go. Overdrive/local libraries have a very limited selection. The Nook lending feature is cool but requires the other person also have a Nook, you bought it from B&N and finding someone with the book you want to read. This is similarly limited enough to be of real-world use to very few people.

What it sounds like it is does do, however, is break the single copy mode of lending on the consumer side. Amazon is handling that on their end with the publisher. And that's a pretty big deal, because publishers are far more like to embrace selling content as a service if they have the comfort of dealing with an established business partner.

The Prime bundling confuses the issue a bit, which makes it harder to work out the actual economics at work here. But I suppose the central question is whether a subscription system works better at capturing a certain segment of the market. Obviously this isn't aimed at those who gobble up genre fiction, and it's not aimed at those who only see a book when they get one as a Christmas present, but there certainly is a vast middle ground populated by people who don't read that much, but still enjoy it, and might read more if presented with the opportunity.

It strikes me that this program would make a lot more sense if it included iOS and Android apps - people who buy a Kindle are generally those who read more than a book a month and don't really need to be enticed to read more. To be honest, right now this really looks like a sales promotion for the hardware more than anything else. To get publishers involved, Amazon is going to have to do a bit more to prove that this really represents a way of broadening the marketplace.

At the limit of one free book per month I don't see a savings. $5.00 for the book from Amazon calculates to $60 per year while purchasing. You just wasted $19 for the 'Free' books. Plus this limitation of one book for month is not aimed at those who read much. I go through a book in two to four days....

At the limit of one free book per month I don't see a savings. $5.00 for the book from Amazon calculates to $60 per year while purchasing. You just wasted $19 for the 'Free' books. Plus this limitation of one book for month is not aimed at those who read much. I go through a book in two to four days....

This is true only if you get absolutely no other use from your Prime membership. But you'd be crazy to pay for a Prime membership for this alone.

This is really intended as a perk to existing Prime customers, or as one more benefit (in addition to the free shipping and streaming) to push you over the edge--not as a stand-alone cost savings on books.

Why not? Even if I read 4 books a month on average, I'd only be paying for three instead of four. I read a fair bit and I'd be all over this.

Yeah, but from the publishers' perspective that represents the downside - there isn't much attraction in giving away a free book to someone who'd have bought it anyway. The upside would be people who get a Kindle Fire and Amazon Prime for the video streaming and free shipping, then find they can get a get a free book each month, enjoy it, and buy another book from an author they like, thus expanding the marketplace for books. This is the part that would be more convincing if the scheme worked on apps as well, but I'm guessing that right now Amazon's subsidising this quite heavily and wants to use it to promote the Fire as much as anything else.

1) Browse list of lendable books using the website. I do all my kindle browsing/buying on a normal computer, and just send things to be delivered next time I walk by a wifi hotspot. I'm not about to start browsing on the Kindle, especially since the place where I do most of my browsing doesn't have a wifi network, and even if it did, wouldn't let strange devices connect to it.

2) More books! (obviously).

But yeah, Amazon Prime is pretty awesomes. I have Amazon Student, which is Amazon Prime minus the free videos and the membership cost. But the free books are apparently included.

Yeah, but from the publishers' perspective that represents the downside - there isn't much attraction in giving away a free book to someone who'd have bought it anyway. The upside would be people who get a Kindle Fire and Amazon Prime for the video streaming and free shipping, then find they can get a get a free book each month, enjoy it, and buy another book from an author they like, thus expanding the marketplace for books. This is the part that would be more convincing if the scheme worked on apps as well, but I'm guessing that right now Amazon's subsidising this quite heavily and wants to use it to promote the Fire as much as anything else.

Ah, I gotcha. You were coming at that from a different point of view than I was reading it as - as a publisher as opposed to a consumer. I agree completely with what you said above, and I have no doubt that is a good reason why Amazon would have a hard time getting publishers on board with this. I know when I find an author I like, I'll happily start reading more of their books and that could pay out to publishers, but still.

And yeah, I imagine that this is primarily being used to help push the Fire. I'm curious if we'll see this 'broaden' out to Apps at a later time. Of course, being locked down to just a Kindle device could help further 'protect' the books, which could help publishers feel more at ease, too.

All I can say is the kindle fire is going to sell more devices then anyone would have originally expected... I think amazon has an opportunity to completely corner the coffee table user market. It is poised to be one of the best media consumption devices ever...

Yeah, but from the publishers' perspective that represents the downside - there isn't much attraction in giving away a free book to someone who'd have bought it anyway. The upside would be people who get a Kindle Fire and Amazon Prime for the video streaming and free shipping, then find they can get a get a free book each month, enjoy it, and buy another book from an author they like, thus expanding the marketplace for books. This is the part that would be more convincing if the scheme worked on apps as well, but I'm guessing that right now Amazon's subsidising this quite heavily and wants to use it to promote the Fire as much as anything else.

Ah, I gotcha. You were coming at that from a different point of view than I was reading it as - as a publisher as opposed to a consumer. I agree completely with what you said above, and I have no doubt that is a good reason why Amazon would have a hard time getting publishers on board with this. I know when I find an author I like, I'll happily start reading more of their books and that could pay out to publishers, but still.

And yeah, I imagine that this is primarily being used to help push the Fire. I'm curious if we'll see this 'broaden' out to Apps at a later time. Of course, being locked down to just a Kindle device could help further 'protect' the books, which could help publishers feel more at ease, too.

This indeed is to push the Fire, and why not? Also, Amazon is not really at risk with their relationships with publishers the way Apple is. They have a bigger stick to wield.

Like the Kindle Apps, Kindle Touch, Kindle Fire - Only available in the US?

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Hard to become dominant when you're only serving about 4% of the world's population.

I'm becoming increasingly leery of using iTunes services because of platform lockin, but at least they recognize there are people who don't live in the US.

Until someone else is willing to allow me to pay money and use their services, it seems like I don't have much choice.

Amazon's lack of global clout has kind of surprised me in the digital arena, they announced that their music store would be available in Canada in 2008 and it still isn't here. I also can't buy this ad supported Kindle, I have to buy one without ads for $40 more. It has allowed others to really pounce on the market up here, Kobo is bigger than Amazon in the ereader market and I suspect that's mostly because you can't walk into a store and buy a Kindle, plus Amazon simply doesn't offer the services that it does just over the border. Same is true of Australia and New Zealand, Amazon barely exists there so Kobo has taken the market share.

Yet Microsoft has managed to keep Zune rolling along though, so I've signed up with them in Canada.

Like the Kindle Apps, Kindle Touch, Kindle Fire - Only available in the US?

Quote:

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Hard to become dominant when you're only serving about 4% of the world's population.

Apparently not. 80% of e-books sold are sold in the US market; Amazon has 2/3 of that market. Half of the e-books sold in Europe are sold in the UK, and Amazon is even more dominant there than they are in the US (probably due to the absence of B&N).

I'm sure Amazon would like to be in more markets - but they have to get the rights to sell in those markets, which isn't always simple, particularly when people don't want competition from Amazon. (And fixed book pricing schemes in most of continental Europe means that Amazon can't sell e-books *or* paper books more cheaply than anyone else.

I just bought a refurbed nook color a few months ago, but i'm likely going to unload that and pick up a fire. i don't typically read more than 1 book a month (i only read during lunch), but even if i did, it would be one less book that i had to purchase.

My wife and I both have a Nook and a Kindle. Overall, we still use the Nook much more than the Kindle and part of that is the free fridays. Not all of those books are great, but they often introduce us to an author we didn't know about and we buy other books of theirs.

And, we get a ton of books from Smashwords (they let you have multiple formats per purchase, and many books there are free). Not all great books either, but that is also true anywhere you shop. And, we have found some great authors through there.

The side loading - I assume that means loading ebooks from other sources? If so, then just go to smashwords.com and look there. Every book supports Kindle, Nook, Pdf, etc., and its very easy to download. When you plug in the Nook or Kindle, it shows up as a device in Windows explorer and you just move files to or from it.

We used to read a ton of paper books, now they are all going to the library as we convert to ebook format (usually, but not always, on the Nook).

Also, our Kindle is the one which is advert supported. $40 off, and we find it is not at all intrusive to reading. It shows the ads when you aren't reading. Very good deal.

Apparently not. 80% of e-books sold are sold in the US market; Amazon has 2/3 of that market. Half of the e-books sold in Europe are sold in the UK, and Amazon is even more dominant there than they are in the US (probably due to the absence of B&N).

So you're saying that they are selling to 66% of 80% of 4%, and that's how they plan to remain dominant?

Ignoring the international market is saying that you don't care about remaining dominant. My library already loans eBooks, and O'Reilly is able to sell their subscription service (which includes non-O'Reilly published works too) in Canada, so these licensing deals are possible. Apple, Microsoft, and a number of other companies already sell music in Canada, so those licensing deals are possible.

It's a lack of interest that appears to be driving this, not an impossibility of licensing - in fact the interest it's so low, that on the day after the new Kindles were launched, amazon.ca 's home page was still advertising the previous generation as the new and improved Kindle.

At the limit of one free book per month I don't see a savings. $5.00 for the book from Amazon calculates to $60 per year while purchasing. You just wasted $19 for the 'Free' books. Plus this limitation of one book for month is not aimed at those who read much. I go through a book in two to four days....

It's not really 1 free book per month, it's just 1 book on your kindle at a time that you must "return". So you can't preload a ton of books, and if your prime subscription ever ends you technically lose access. The catch is that right now it's on a very restricted amount of books, but it's a bit of a bonus on the discount you get with Prime so if you like your kindle and read a lot, this just sweetens getting Prime.

Personally I'm not a fan since I like owning books, and this is sorta taking it a step further where I don't even end up buying a digital copy and would just have access to the books.

Ignoring the international market is saying that you don't care about remaining dominant.

Right now there really isn't an international ebook market. Outside of the US and a few of the European countries ebook sales are were they were five years ago here, aka noexsistent. Most of the foreign publishers (remember, publishing is far more country specific than other content industries) seem to be completely ignoring it for the time being. Because foreign rights are 95% of the time owned by completely different companies than in the US and UK, Amazon can't just sell books worldwide (even if they have solved all the tax, currency conversion, and other logistical issues). They need to get an ebook version from the foreign publisher, who has to create it from the manuscript themselves. It's really not Amazon's fault, and they will surely be the main player once foreign ebooks do take off.